A little Piercings 101

Oh hooray. Blogger deleted this just as I was making the final adjustments. Well, here goes again:

So, piercings. I have a few, all in the ear region. And through experience I know a little bit about what you should and shouldn't do. There is quite a lot of misinformation on piercings floating around out there (false info. on the internet?! Well I never.) so I thought I would share what I know; some common sense, some advice. So let's get going.

• Please, please, please never go to one of those mall kiosks to get a piercing done. Piercing guns cannot be properly sterilized, and on top of that your chances of getting an asymetrical, crooked pair of piercings are pretty damn high, not to mention that they're often pierced with the wrong kind of jewelry.
• Search around for a reputable Tattoo & Piercing place. Try Yelp or some other review websites, that's how I found mine. For those wary of entering a tattoo parlor, if you go to a good place, it won't be scary, you won't feel uncomfortable/intimidated, and you will be treated respectfully as a customer. 
• Think needles are scary? Well then just consider how much scarier the potential consequences of gunned piercings are. That's a little bit of a tough luck kind of answer, I know, but you just have to suck it up. If you have a true, debilitating phobia of needles, I really don't have a solution for you, sorry.
• It barely hurts, and then only for maybe a second. I promise.
• Once you're done, you have to care for it, of course. First: do not touch. I have the worst time leaving the jewelry alone, it's terrible. If you do have to touch it, wash/sanitize your hands well. You don't want little icky bacterias getting in there and throwing a party.
• You want to clean them with either a sea salt spray, which the piercing place you go to should have or be able to recommend, or with a salt water solution. To prepare the salt water, you dissolve 1/4 tsp. of non-iodized sea salt into 8oz. of water, and heat it up so that it's warm, but not burning. Then you soak the piercing for 5 - 10 minutes. This is totally an awkward process to figure out, but you'll eventually get it. You might get a little white gunk out of the piercing when you clean it, and that's normal, just remove it with a clean qtip.
• Do not remove your jewelry until the piercing is fully healed, even if that is longer than the average healing time given. Yeah, it sucks. You want to be able to wear awesome jewelry immediately, but just wait it out. 
• Use common sense when it comes to infections or pain. If things just seem worse than the should be or usually are, go ahead and go back into the shop and get a piercer's advice. Or go to someone better, if you think the original piercer is to blame for the problem. 

That's my crash course in piercings. I'm sure I'll be posting on the subject again, since there is just so much to go over. I've also begun stretching my lowest lobe piercings, and when I think I've figured the whole thing out, I'll post on that, too. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I'll try to answer to the best of my ability.
Finally, I am not a professional, so take my advice with a grain of salt (pun not intended, and really rather lame now that I think about it). Good luck in your piercing endeavors!